this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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Programming
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The Rust kernel devs are ...
No, they were asking them to define the semantics of the filesystem APIs. Those semantics are not encoded in the C API but the Rust devs wanted to encode them in the Rust API to avoid making mistakes.
The C devs didn't want to, not because of concerns about binary drivers, but because the semantics are already broken. Apparently different filesystem drivers assume different semantics for the same functions and it's a whole mess. They don't want to face up to this and certainly don't want anyone pointing it out, so clearly it must be the Rust devs' fault for wanting APIs to have consistent semantics.
The rest of your comment is nonsense.
What's the reason to avoid binary blob drivers being feasible? Is that about not being able to use non-free binary blobs in kernel? I don't quite understand what it even is about
Having binary blobs linked into your kernel is a maintainability nightmare. You're allowing a third party to link their buggy drivers into the heart of your platform. It breaks any security model you have, and brings with a bunch of bugs that are impossible to debug.
Nvidia were the worst offender and it culminated in this:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/linus-torvalds-says-f-k-you-to-nvidia/
Got it. I agree that their drivers are (were?) of exemplary bad quality
But I don't think that it is realistically possible to drop all the proprietary firmware blobs, and if it's not maybe it's better to not actively sabotage something to 'avoid those being feasible'?
Firmware don't link to the kernel tho, and the kernel functions aren't stable so a firmware today would stop working tomorrow because a function was refactored(and all the code in the kernel that depend on that function) for performance or security, and the binary can't be refactored so it become useless
IIRC They were also trying to get kernel devs to let official structure definitions live in Rust instead of C, and got upset when they didn't want to do that.
the rust devs wanted to CREATE official structure definitions that don’t exist in C so that there was more semantic meaning to the APIs